


The Gauntlet

by STEPH_INFECTION



Category: Deathgarden (Video Game)
Genre: Dystopia, Gen, Gun Violence, Guns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 11:36:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15971516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/STEPH_INFECTION/pseuds/STEPH_INFECTION
Summary: A story based on and inspired by Behavior Interactive's asymmetrical shooter/action game DEATHGARDEN.Tumblr blog can be found here: https://thegauntletstory.tumblr.com/





	1. Part One - Josie

From rags to riches. That was the promise The Gauntlet offered. If you wanted to make your way in the world, you had to compete. Typically, only people that were able to afford enhancing themselves would compete in the arenas. Now that’s not to say people without enhancements participated, but rather most of them didn’t make it past their first match-up. You could chalk that up to the fact that they were outclassed in almost every way by every other contestant competing, but me? I never saw it that way. I grew up in Toronto, which would be fine had I been born into a family with any sort of social presence. My mom worked fast-food, and my dad worked as a mailboy in an office building. Easy to guess correctly that they never took part in The Gauntlet. We never had enough money to get food for everyone, and we definitely didn’t have enough money to get a nanomachine printer. But that last bit didn’t really matter much since The Gauntlet was always publicly televised on every public screen in the city.

I wanna say I was about 13 when I started to realize I wanted more from life than just sitting in a trashy apartment hoping my folks could scrape together enough money for food. I spent most of my days outside, freerunning over buildings and through alleyways. Spent a few nights in jail due to trespassing when their drones saw me and shocked me out of the air a couple of times, but that never stopped me. Maybe a year or so later, I started getting serious with my running, entering small competitions here and there when I could pick enough pockets to get the entry fee. I didn’t win much at first, but eventually after getting shat on so much I started to pick up more advanced techniques, and started to win those small competitions pretty regularly until they told me I was too good to be running in them. My winnings from those competitions were able to support me and my family a bit better, and we didn’t go for days without eating since I started. When I told my folks I was looking to go pro, they were supportive but understandably worried. If I kept going down this path, their little girl was surely going to enter The Gauntlet and get herself killed while the whole country watches.

I knew that I stood no chance of winning against one of the hunters in The Gauntlet if I entered. I’m a thrill-seeker sure, but I’m not an idiot. I started out small, taking part in the Legacy Gauntlet, the original version of the game that Zhu created so many years ago. It wasn’t endorsed by the mainstream Gauntlet anymore, but more for people who wanted to get their thrills and five seconds of fame without the risk of death. Most people didn’t take the Legacy Gauntlet seriously since there was no real threat, but I took it to heart. If I was going to stand any chance in the real thing I needed to start learning and preparing now. The Legacy was no real challenge for me, running through a maze with someone trying to tag you. I failed plenty at first, but once I learned the rules and the tricks, I lost less and less, until I placed first in the league for Toronto. Now, The Legacy isn’t nearly as big or important as The Gauntlet, but it can still get you some places. With my family no longer worrying about skipping meals because of the monthly payments from the league, I was able to focus less on keeping up my wins and more on training myself for the real show. I thought about being a hunter but quickly decided against it. I was not at all built for or training for hunting. I was made to run.

After the year of supplemental income from the league was starting to come to a close, I knew it was now or never. I went to the city’s Coliseum, met with a talent recruiter, paid my entry fee, and sat down with an interviewer to talk about my participation in the upcoming season of The Gauntlet for all of Canada. They broke down the seasons for me, what happens when someone loses, all the rules, and just the basics of actually competing in the tournament.

The seasons would break down between all competing countries, with the grand champion from each participating city in the country moving on to the world championships. There are four seasons split up throughout the year, to provide extra contestants when some inevitably die and are lost to The Gauntlet. By the end of the season, the runners with the most wins and least losses in their belt would move to the championships. Once in the championships, all those runners will be placed into a team to represent their country and will be paired with a finalist hunter from the country to form that country’s team. The last country standing wins. The championship has one season, one team from each competing country, and is based off elimination. The hunters for each team are chosen from finalists by the country’s judges, with no contestant input. Typically the hunter that earned the most kills on top of their win/loss ratio was picked. In the championships, though, the game was much more high-stakes than it already was. Each team competes until their team either doesn’t have enough players to continue, or all the other teams have lost. That means that in each match if one of your teammates dies, you go into the next match with fewer people than you did in your previous match. Once a team is reduced to two runners, they are disqualified. In the championships, it was a guarantee that at least three people from each losing team would be going home in a casket.

None of that mattered to me. I needed to know how to win, and when to run. Teamwork was important in the country-wide games, but staying alive and keeping wins up was more important if you were aiming for the world title. I knew that, and so did everyone else that signed up. During your participation, you weren’t allowed to leave the Coliseum. Everything you needed or wanted would be provided for you within the confines. There were personal locker rooms, and there were common spaces and even fan spaces where the contestants could interact with the people that were rooting for them. There was never any privacy, however. Upon signing up, you needed a special piece of augmented nano-tech that helped The 3 televise the games, and that made them as interesting as they were. Hunters got a nano-cam implanted in both of their eyeballs, while runners got a neural link to an external nano-cam that was always close behind them. The hunter’s camera was simply for broadcasting, but the runner camera was for gameplay as well. While at any point the screen could switch from a runner’s first-person view, it could also switch to the neural-cam’s view in third-person. The same was available for the runners, though it was less straightforward than flipping a switch for us. It was like having a third eye that you could see out of, and see yourself moving normally like you would any day, while also having your normal point of view. It was intense. A lot of people aren’t allowed into the gauntlet as runners for the simple fact that their minds aren’t strong enough for the link. To test this, they give you a series of interviews. The first two are more medical, and mental related to see if you’ll be compatible, while the third one is a personal interview, for the introductions of the contestants.

“Please state your name, city of residence, and occupation.” The man’s voice echoed in the empty room, as I faced only a camera, with my newly administered runner’s mask. Everyone got the same gear at first. Didn’t matter who you were, it was all the same drab clothes. If you survived past your first game, you got to pick your wardrobe.

“I’m Josie Ranger. I’m from Toronto, and I freerun for a living.” The silence as they took notes was short, and they ushered me into the next question briskly.

“So, Jo - may I call you Jo?” This voice was a different one from the monotone voice that came before. This voice belonged to the interviewer that would be televised with me for my interview.

“Sure, I don’t care.” I gave a shrug as I let the words slide off my tongue. Most people would be nervous about the interview, and truth be told so was I. But if I showed any kind of weakness I’d be mince-meat.

“Alright, Jo. So, before we get into the reasons you came to The Gauntlet, let’s take care of some formalities. You said you’re a professional freerunner, is that correct?”

“Sure is.”

“Excellent! We would love to know who your sponsor is in this event. That is to say, what brand and type of augments are you going to be sporting this season?”

I blew a small puff of air out of my nose as the words filled the room. “I don’t have any.” This time, the silence was longer.

“Really? No augmentation? And why is that?” It sounded like genuine intrigue, but I knew he couldn’t care less about my story.

“I’m poor. Opted for the cheaper, more old-school way of things. I worked my ass off.” My response got a chuckle out of him, as he readied his next question.

“That’s fantastic! Would you mind flexing for the folks watching at home, miss Jo?” I shook my head and gave a small laugh myself, and flexed my bicep.

“Wow! Quite impressive, Josie! Now with that kind of all natural muscle and figure, what made you choose The Gauntlet instead of, say, a modeling job?” I scoffed. This was a stupid question.

“Would you rather sit in a room all day getting your picture taken for meaningless praise, or actually make your mark on this shitstain of a rock?” My abrasive answer definitely caught him off guard.

“Oh, my! Well, when you put it that way I suppose it really sounds like there’s no better option! Best of luck to you this season, ma’am. The world will be watching!”


	2. Part Two - The First Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josie is sent into her first match in the Garden.

There was no waiting after the interview portion. You finish up the questions, the audience learns what they want to learn, and they send you to the ready room to compete. They said if I survived my first match they’d assign me a locker room that’ll be my personal room and training area. Not the grand prize, but at least I’ll be able to have a place to keep sharp. But for now, it was go time. I walked up to the terminal that would program the nanomachines in my vambrace to a certain class of skills and punched in “Torment”. I’d watched enough of the games to know my role and what I’d need to be doing with this class, and it suited me just fine. I cracked my neck, ran my hands through my short, wavy hair, and when that particle wall came down I jumped out of the ready room with my teammates this round.

The neural-implant let us know what class the others picked, where our teammates were, and the objects they marked for us. It was a scramble to find upgrade part crates at first so we could get at least one vambrace power before the hunter dropped in. The blue outline of the box, and the voice of the control player that marked it ushered us to our first piece of that puzzle.

“Blue is over here.” His voice sounded like someone was pouring caramel into a cauldron. A cauldron full of razor blades that’d be handed out on Halloween night. We all rushed toward the crate, and as our vambraces deconstructed it into an upgrade part for us the announcer’s voice filled the garden.

“Hunter has entered the garden.”  
Now is when shit gets serious. No more aimlessly running around looking for crates. Ten seconds was all we got for that, the rest we could find while our lives were on the line. The group quickly dispersed as our neural link showed us three circles at the top of our view, each with a letter and corresponding progress bar. My first game of the season was capture points. I rushed to an upgrade station so I could unlock the reveal ability, marking a few ammo and health crates along the way to get NPI for my powered bolts. I had no clue what NPI stood for, and I didn’t really care either. All I needed to know was how to get it, and how to use it. I pressed one of the buttons on my vambrace’s control panel and went toward the sound of heavy footsteps and gunshots. If we were gonna get out of this, we’d need to know where the fucker was as much as possible.

If I had to describe the feeling I got when I saw the hunter and actively chose to keep moving toward him in just a word, that word would be incoherent screaming. Every part of me was telling me to run because I knew I was in grave danger by hoping to confront this massive fucker in battle armor strapped with a shotgun and machine gun. That feeling never goes away, but it does get easier to ignore. I flicked my vambrace to the hunter and shot my bolt, red outline encompassing the massive man loaded with enough firepower to clear floors of skyscrapers single-handedly. I watched him look around to try and spot me and watched him take off in the opposite direction toward the capture point that just lit up on all of our neural links.

“Someone get on another point, he can’t get both of us at once.” There was that sickeningly sweet voice again. The control player knew what he was doing, either he played this game illegally in the underground or did his research before coming in. It may be fucked up, but I was hoping it was the former. That extra experience could be useful here, especially to make sure we won.

“Gotcha!” a more peppy, happy-go-lucky voice chimed out as the icon for ‘A’ lit up. The other control player stepped into that circle, and both of them were tinted in that red outline. Gunfire followed shortly after, along with the sounds of vambrace powers flying around. I had enough time to get my other two powers ready for use before the announcer chimed in again.

“Runner down.”  
Shit. Through the jumble of screams, shots and electronic whirring it was hard to tell who’d been thrown to the floor, but a quick check with my new flying third eye confirmed it was one of our support players. Not my problem, I needed to make sure the others could save her by showing the hunter’s position. I picked up another upgrade part and upgraded my reveal bolt, giving it a much more generous area of effect. The good news being I wouldn’t have to be pinpoint accurate with my shots now and the support player was helped back on her feet. The bad news was that one of the control players got gunned down before I had the chance to reveal the hunter’s location. I shot my bolt at the tree-trunk adjacent to the hunter, coating him in that red glow as I inched toward the downed control player. Being able to actually get a good look at him, that sickly sweet voice belonged to an equally sickly sweet man. His dark skin and contrasting blonde dreadlocks were either hideous or beautiful, I couldn’t decide which. I helped him back on his feet, exchanged a nod with him and went back to stalking the hunter.

It doesn’t matter the advantages you have over your enemy when they’re able to out-maneuver you.

“Runner down, bloodpost ready.”  
The peppy control player was sent screaming in the grip of the 3d printed claw through the fabricated earth and into the bloodpost. I cursed under my breath and ran back toward the center of the arena where I knew that horrific contraption sat waiting. I switched my vambrace from reveal bolts to virus ones. Once I saw that hulking red outline sauntering to the post, I popped him. An awful smell erupted from him, and the way he unpacked the ammo crate showed it was affecting him, too. It took him quite a bit longer to refill his clips than usual, which was excellent for us. If I could time my shots right and keep him messed up like that, the other control player could shoot stuns at him and - my train of thought was rudely interrupted by the sound of the announcer.

“Point A is halfway completed.”  
That bastard wasn’t anywhere near the bloodpost. He was capturing points.

“Hey, control! Get your ass over here and help us rescue!” I didn’t dare shout in case the hunter heard me, but the tone I inflicted on my voice was enough to get my point across.

“You three do it. We need to capture two of these things to win, in case you forgot.” I cursed under my breath. He was right, but one of the supports could easily stand on one of the points while he helped us out over here.

“Execution available”  
Showtime. As the hunter started punching in the code to execute the control runner lodged in the post’s clawed fingers I loosed another virus bolt, and that stench filled the air once more. He was slipping up with the code now, which would buy us much needed time. I saw a support player crawl out of the brush, but once she started to put in her own code that would release the runner, she was outlined in red and the hunter quickly pumped her with buckshot. Her scream made me grimace as her body flung into the wall behind her. The other support player went toward them to try to help them up, and I knew I’d have to rescue her myself. As I jumped off the tree I had been hanging onto for the past few seconds, the foul odor faded and was replaced mechanical whirring as the bloodpost revved to strike down into the control player’s spine.

“No, no no! Please save me I don’t wanna die!”  
Her pleas for mercy were lost on the hunter as that claw struck her down. Her body was toted back through the ground to wherever it is they put the corpses, and that hollow voice sounded off.

“Runner executed. Runners have two lives remaining.”  
I got ready to start cursing out the other control player but was interrupted by the announcer once more.

“Exit is available, blood mode active.”  
The bastard got it done, at least. I would have to express my distaste for that play later, for now, we needed to make sure that girl’s sacrifice wasn’t for nothing. I bolted upright and made a B-line toward the exit, gunfire following closely behind, which quickly turned to screaming as our female support player was struck down, and immediately executed. I hit the exit just as the timer struck zero, which immediately highlighted me and my remaining two teammates in red as we all got sent out of the garden and to the post-match interview booth. The three surviving runners were sent in through a transit-tube sort of thing and were quickly escorted to the couch in the center of the room.

“Congratulations, you three! You were fantastic in there!” The interviewer from before. The voice was unforgettable, but actually seeing his face was even more so. He was glam’d up past any normal human. This was, quite literally, a face built for television.

“Excellent plays by you all, truly inspiring stuff! Josie, your reveal bolts and your strategy with them were impeccable, and your use of the virus was simply divine! Shame that it couldn’t save Drina, though. She will be missed. But what a move it was sacrificing her for the better of the team! Makena, what was the thought process on that?” he turned his attention to that he-devil control player. They were talking, I knew that much, but I stopped listening. I stood up, and walked out the door of the interview room, paying no mind to the host calling me to get my attention. If I could have, I’d have slammed the door behind me on my way out.

The bouncers escorted me to my new locker room and left me to my own devices. There was a video tour guide available for when I needed to find my way around the Coliseum, but I didn’t care about that now. I went straight to the closet and picked out some new clothes. I wanted to pay homage to those players we lost in that game, and to the man who made the legacy gauntlet where I was able to practice to be able to even remotely stand a chance in here. I threw on my need jacket, tossed the hood up over my back, and donned my new, grinning mask. This mask’s grin would be the only thing the hunters saw of me, and I was going to avenge those deaths by winning this gauntlet. I took one of the knives out of the cutlery drawer in my locker room’s kitchen and scraped out two names into my vambrace, which now had a shiny new orange and white paint job. Drina, and Makena. No way was I going to forget Drina’s sacrifice, and I sure as hell wasn’t gonna let Makena get away with that bullshit he pulled. I’d get back at him somehow.


	3. Part Three - Makena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look into the choices that landed Makena into this game

Being the son of the wealthiest man in Canada has its perks. Perks like the best education money can buy, world-class personal trainers, and augments to skip all of that shit so you can just do it all now. But being born into success has its drawbacks. I never got to make a name for myself, to show the world that I was more than just my dad’s last name. O’nna is a tacky last name anyways. The fuck’s it even mean? Who the fuck even cares what it means? I walked out of the house for my first day of school maybe 15 years ago. I did great, always got high marks and never got into trouble. That got stale after a while. Mom was dead, and dad was never around, so fuck it, why waste a good attitude on someone that don’t deserve it?

Didn’t take long for me to get blacklisted on all the private schools in the country. Eventually, I just stopped going to school cos’ no one would accept me. My old man paid for me to get augments to know the shit I oughta, and that was that. I started falling in with some rough crowds, got into fights, spent some time in jail, typical shit. Eventually, I got sick of that too. I already had money, I didn’t need to work crime to make more and it sure as hell wasn’t getting my name out there. So instead, I focused on the one way you could get any sort of recognition on this shitty rock. The Gauntlet. It took me only a few months to get doctors to see me and give me the biometric tattoos I wanted. Some that strengthened my ligaments, some to sharpen my reactions, others to help direct the flow of muscle-building to appropriate spots for running and parkour. The rest was just a matter of practice and getting perfect at the technique. I’d go to paintball arenas and spend days practicing. Rented hotel rooms next to the arenas just so I could play from open to close. They wouldn’t let me play without a weapon, so I bought some dinky-ass pistol to take in with me. I’d dodge pellets, slide under barricades, climb over sandbags and eventually, I started shooting back. It got boring when there was nothing to do but run without end. I won more than I lost, and eventually moved on to airsoft battles. After that got stale, I applied at the Montreal recruitment station for The Gauntlet.

The screening process was a joke. If I wanted to I could’ve easily faked whatever the fuck I needed to to get in. I didn’t need to, though, seeing as I’d been preparing for this shit the past 15 years of my life. The only thing that I took seriously was the waiver I had to sign. ‘In case of permanent injury, death, or disability I hereby void all right5s of legal action against the city of Montreal, and any other city/country partaking in The Gauntlet. I acknowledge that if I am passed forward to the world championship I will not be revived, in an effort to commemorate those which we have lost in the thousand-day war. I hereby give permission to the council of three and the curators of The Gauntlet to discharge me as they see fit, and how they see fit. Remembrance is key to learning from our mistakes, your council thanks you for your potential sacrifice for the good of humanity.’ Dying was the only constant in life. Most of the time, you could be brought back thanks to the technology we have now, but in The Gauntlet’s finals if you died you weren’t coming back. Some bullshit they spewed about remembering the past to not repeat our mistakes, but I knew it was really about the drama it promised. They had me stay in this fancy cabin while they got everything ready for me. They handed me that basic mask and uniform told me I’d get to customize it once I survived through my first match. Didn’t matter none to me, so I took the clothes and stripped down.

Walking into that interview booth with the freshly printed clothes and mask I had donned moments before, was sorta cleansing in a weird proverbial and fucked up sort of sense. It didn’t matter who I was behind the mask anymore, only who I was with it on.

“Please state your name, city of residence, and occupation.” The cold, monotone voice that came from the speakers I couldn’t see filled the grey, mechanical walls of the interview room. The camera positioned in front of me on the wall swerving to match every slight movement I made, like a vulture waiting for its next meal.

“Makena. Montreal. I do whatever the hell I feel like.” For a brief moment, there was silence. Then the monotone voice returned.

“Full name, please.” I growled under my mask. Why the fuck did it matter?  
“Fuck you. My name’s Makena, you have my last name on that form I filled out.” More silence, some chittering, then that peppy broadcaster’s voice we’d all heard so often from streams in the past.

“Makena, is it?” The question was rhetoric, seeing as I didn’t get even a space to reply. “What brings you to The Gauntlet this season, young man? And who are you sporting?” There was genuine intrigue behind his voice. He knew who I was, and he wanted to know why I’d risk myself when I already had all the advantages I could ever need.

“I’m making a name for myself. Doc Ulrich down at ‘finer limbs’ tatted me up. Got some reaction enhancers, some muscle toners, and some shit to plug up bleeds.”

“Interesting! Well then, Makena, I do wish you luck in your first game! No matter how well or poorly you do, you will surely be making a name for yourself out there.”

I grimaced at the undertones of his statement, but the camera stopped recording shortly after and the doorway to the ready-room opened up. Time to shine, I guess.


	4. Part Four - Makena's Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The events of the first game, from Makena's point of view.

 

The ready room was as he’d expected. Just a few walls, a console, and the other players. He walked to the class console and selected control without hesitation. Looking around at his teammates, they were all beginners of the season, like he was. Not surprising, it’d be idiotic to put in brand new players with ones that were already experienced. If he survived his first game he’d get his own dressing room and practice area, and if he didn’t he’d be sent back home. These first games are more like preliminary rounds, or applications of sorts. The threat of death was, for the most part, a non-issue. As long as your brain didn’t get insanely damaged they could have you back good as new in no time.

It took me a moment to realize what was happening when the announcer beamed from all around us.   
“You may now enter The Garden”  
Snapping back to reality from my train of thought, I dove out of the ready room down into the garden below, keeping my eyes peeled for anything useful. I peered at my HUD, getting a glimpse of what the other players chose. Another Control player, a Torment player, and two Support players. Decent structure, if they had any sort of clue what they’re doing. I saw a shimmer from the corner of my eye, and shot a bolt at it, highlighting it a bright blue. First upgrade crate.

“Blue is over here.” In a hushed tone, I told my team where they could get their hands on a shiny new part of their vambrace. They scrambled over, and once we had collected it we went our separate ways, namely toward upgrade consoles. I got my level one stun bolt, and that monotonous voice echoed from around me.

“Hunter has entered the Garden.” Now was where the game began. The objectives started to piece together as the announcer spoke, and I ran to the first one I could see. “You are revealed.” her voice echoed through my neural link, and sure enough my body was outlined bright red like a target for the hunter saying “Hey! Look at me! Pump me full of lead!” and as if on cue, I could see the hunter, now also outlined bright red, heading toward me. I moved behind the point, making sure none of my body was sticking out from the sides and tapped my mask to talk to my team again.

“Someone get on another point, he can’t get both of us at once.” Soon after, the other control player piped up, with an irritatingly peppy voice. “Gotcha!” and then the ‘A’ lit up on my HUD. Didn’t seem to matter though, as the chorus of gunfire sent bullets flying in my direction. I scrambled to get on my feet from my crouched position and took off. ‘Shit,’ I thought to myself, ‘I only have these fucking stuns and we’ve only got half an objective done.’ Leaving the objective removed that red aura from around me, but that huge bastard was already on my tail. I had to try to shake him, so I turned around and hit him with a stun. It slowed him for about half a second before I felt a load of buckshot tear through my leg. I screamed and fell over on the ground writhing.

“Runner down.”  That robotic voice sounded off as if mocking me. But in reality, I just hadn’t noticed that he’d downed someone else moments before he shot me. Checking my HUD, I still had a bar of health before the nanomachines forced me to a crawl while bleeding me out in the dirt. Painfully, I stood myself up on my leg that was now filled with bullet holes, and looked for a health crate. Too little too late, as machine-gun fire hailed down on me knocking out that last bar of health and sending me to the dirt screaming. I’d stand back up if I could, but once your health bar empties the nanobots make sure that if you’re still able to stand you can’t while your health is empty. That announcer chimed off again, as I saw the Torment player inching closer to me. “Runner down, bloodpost almost full.” ‘Fuck. We need to finish those objectives.’ I thought, as the other runner helped me to my feet. We exchanged a nod, and I took off toward the half-complete point B. My leg still hurt like fire, so I popped open a health crate on my way there. The nanomachines swarmed my wounds, any bullets left inside me melted into a black goo as my wounds patched themselves up, seemingly by magic. The torment player was doing her job well, marking the hunter whenever she could. I finished capturing B, but just as I did the announcer spoke again. “Runner down, bloodpost ready.” followed quickly by the scream of the other control player, as she was hauled off to the post. I cursed under my breath, but there were still two others left. Surely they could handle it. We still needed to win. I made my way to A, and began the process of capturing it. Vambraces exploding with powered bolts, status effects flying, all in a hope to help the person slated to die. “Point A is halfway completed” That was the first time this match I’d felt relief at hearing that voice, but suddenly a brash voice interrupted that sensation.

“Hey, control! Get your ass over here and help us rescue!” And just when I thought she was a competent player.

“You three do it, we still need to capture two of these things to win, you know.” Where the fuck does she get off telling me how to play? We need to win, it’s not like death is permanent anyway. But then a support player was sent to the ground, following the sound of a shotgun being discharged. Then the screams of the control player. I was sitting atop the pillar, watching it go down. The player panicked as the bloodpost’s claw moved in to strike her down, and she threw her entire body about trying to break free.

“No, no no! Please save me, I don’t wanna die!” But her flailing was stopped as the claw impaled her skull. Not the spine, like it should, but her skull. Her panic shifted her position, and the claw stabbed her through the skull into her brain. There’s no way that she’d be coming back now. It felt like time stood still for a brief moment, and was only interrupted by the announcer's sick voice.

“Exits are open, bloodmode active.” I snapped back to reality and ran to the nearest exit, a support player going down and being eliminated as i passed the threshold to the exit. The other two players made it out, and we got a win as our first game of the season.

We got sent to the interview room instantly and were ushered to a couch in the center of the room. The host of this season, and a few others if I’m remembering correctly, congratulated us on our win.

  
“Excellent plays by you all, truly inspiring stuff! Josie, your reveal bolts and your strategy with them were impeccable, and your use of the virus was simply divine! Shame that it couldn’t save Drina, though. She will be missed. But what a move it was sacrificing her for the better of the team! Makena, what was the thought process on that?” Did he notice she got killed, like, for real? Or was he just being a cynical asshole? I couldn’t tell, and soon after he said those words the Torment player - Josie - stood up and left. The host was calling to her, trying to get her to come back but she was already long gone. At that point, I didn’t care to hear his shitty voice or stare at his fuckoff ugly face, and left myself. The bouncers took me to my dressing room, and then left me to it. I took a look through the wardrobe and picked out a simple outfit. Didn’t bother changing the mask, but the outfit and vambrace colors matched with me nicely, I think. I tried to take my mind off what had happened earlier, trying not to think about how that control player, Drina, wasn’t coming back or going home. It was surreal, but not unheard of. I went to my bed off in the corner of my room and laid there sleepless for some hours.


	5. Part Five - Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The news of Drina's death is publicised, and Josie is ready to get up in arms about it.

 

The contract all the runners and hunters signed when we came on board to this game stated that any one player couldn’t compete more than twice a week, during the preliminary season. For the most part, no player was lined up for two games one after the other, which meant that everyone who played yesterday more or less had today off, and likely a few more days after until they got called on to play again. They give you all sorts of shit in your locker room to mess with, game consoles, an automated bar, and premium cable. Sitting on my ass got stale pretty quickly though, especially since without any tats I needed to work to keep in peak condition. I tossed the remote control to the huge overhead television off to the side and stood up from my spot on my bed, throwing on a t-shirt and jeans before heading to the door to my locker room that would lead to the runner’s commons. They kept the runners and hunters separate during the prelims so that the best performance possible was always guaranteed out of both sides. 

 

The commons was a huge dome, nearly a garden in and of itself, filled with concessions, televisions, nanoprinters, bars, you name it. It was almost surreal, all of this tech and food all for simply running in the game. It disgusted me, but in the same breath, I loved it. I took a look around at some of the runners, most of them I didn’t recognize but a few of them I’d seen on my TV while flipping thru channels. While I was caught up in my own thoughts two people bumped into me as they sprinted across the commons, shouting at each other.

 

“Jun! Get the fuck back here with my raspberry tart!” A feminine voice rang out from one of the figures that had violated my personal space. Her hair was stark blonde and slicked to the side reminiscent of an old-school gangster. Not something one would expect from her lightly accented, smooth voice. It sounded like how roses look, smooth and beautiful with a touch of sharpness and apprehension. Sounded like a complete snob that never struggled for anything in her damn life.

“Come and get it, skank!” A much different voice rang out from in front of her, it had the same light accent to it but it was deeper, and a bit more gruff, as if someone took that same rose and sprayed it with insecticide. It was obvious the two were close, and even more so that they didn’t care about who was around them. I groaned as I started to yell at the two of them, hands pulling out of my pockets.

 

“Hey! How ‘bout a fuckin ‘Excuse me’ or ‘Whoops! Didn’t mean to nearly knock you on your ass random stranger I’ve never met before in my life!’” They either didn’t hear me or didn’t care as the man in front kept egging on the girl and running into and around people while she followed. Typical. I gave a grumble while I walked up to the buffet bar, scanning the different printers to see what foods they were coded to. Most were actually a type of food and not just one specific foodstuff. Most of the things I hadn’t heard of, so I went with waffles and chocolate milk. 

 

I ate my breakfast alone at a table. I was hoping to see Drina and apologize for Makena, but I quickly remembered that if you died in your first game you were sent back home. I gave a heavy sigh as I poked at my waffle with my fork. It was hard to focus on eating with all the commotion around me, and as I was about to take another bite the screens that were put up along the walls all lit up simultaneously, some of the runners complaining as their show was interrupted. The host of this season’s ugly mug was on the screens before me once again, but his face was more solemn than when I had previously had the displeasure of speaking with him.

 

“Runners, Hunters, and Citizens of Canada, we are filled with a deep sorrow this morning as we come to you with the news of a death.” Everyone went silent. Someone had died? I mean, obviously, that’s the name of the game, right? “Drina Aubrey has been announced dead as of 22:34 last night. She suffered irreparable brain damage due to a mishap with the bloodpost. We must remind you not to panic and move your heads while you are restrained to the bloodpost, as it poses a real threat to your longevity. There will be a memorial service for miss Aubrey this afternoon at 13:00. That is all.” And with that, the T.Vs all switched back to what they were showing previously. The commons were silent for a moment before the murmurings returned, then soon after conversations were back into full swing. I suddenly wasn’t hungry anymore. I stood from my table and scanned the faces in the commons. ‘ _ Where is that bastard.’  _ I thought to myself, as my eyes peered for those piss-streak dreadlocks that belonged to Makena. I didn’t see him in the crowd of runners, so I decided to take a more direct approach. 

 

I pushed through the sea of people to get to the corridor that lead to the locker rooms and began searching for Makena’s. He’s gonna fuckin’ pay for that. _ ‘She could have lived, she SHOULD have lived, but he had to be a selfish bastard.’  _ I was fuming, and it was easy to tell. Once I saw his name on the door, I threw it open.

“Makena, you piece of shit!” I shouted at him from across the room. He was sitting on his bed, head hunched over his shoulders in silence. “Drina’s fucking dead ‘cos of you and your stupid fucking strategy!” My voice was getting progressively louder, and I began walking over to him, fists clenched. Everything was a blur of emotions, and I could barely hear him because of it when he spoke.

“Yeah.” Just one word and I broke into a full run, screaming every profanity I knew at him, and he didn’t even flinch when I raised my fist ready to slam into his thick skull, but something caught me off guard.  _ ‘Is he crying?’  _ I couldn’t bring myself to hit him. His voice was void of emotion from that one word he spoke, and the only giveaway that he had been crying was the single streak of shimmer running down his face. I growled at him as I put down my fist, and instead simply shoved him over.

“Use your fuckin’ head next time before you do some dumb shit.” I put my hands back in my pockets and walked out of his room, just as security came to drag me out. I couldn’t tell if he was crying because he felt remorse, or for some other reason, but it didn’t matter. I’m not gonna pick a fight with someone when they clearly aren’t in the position to fight back. 

 

I made my way back to my locker room, intending to work out and train until the memorial for Drina was starting, but I ended up just laying on my bed for at least an hour before getting up to actually work out. I still couldn’t decide what to make of this morning, of Makena. Was he genuinely upset, or was he putting on a show? I shook the doubt from my head as I stood, grabbing a protein drink from the drink dispenser and walked toward the training grounds.


End file.
